


A SHORT BIOGRAPHY 



OF 



The Menhaden 



AN ABSTRACT OF 



'A HISTORY OF THE MENHADEN." 



By G. BROWN GOODE. 



Read before the Saratoga Meeting of the American Association for the 

Advancement of Science, and the Chicago Meeting op the Central 

Fish Cultural Association, and in an extended form before 

the New York Meeting of the United States 

Menhaden Oil and Guano Association. 



PROVIDENCE, R. I. 

Rhode Island Printing Company, 62 Weybosset Street. 

1882. 




9 



A SHORT BIOGRAPHY 



OF 



The Menhaden 



AN ABSTRACT OF 



"A HISTORY OF THE MENHADEN." 



By G. BROWN GOODE. 




Read before the Saratoga Meeting of the American Association for the 

Advancement of Science, and the Chicago Meeting of the Central 

Fish Cultural Association, and in an extended form before 

THE New York Meeting op the United States 

Menhaden Oil and Guano Association. 



PROVIDENCE, R. I. 

Rhode Island Printing Company, 62 Weybosset Street. 

1882. 



yC 



A SHORT BIOGRAPHY 

OF 



THE MENHADEN 



By G. brown GOODE, 

OF MIDDLETOWN, CONN. 



The herring family is represented on the Atlantic coast of the 
United States by ten species, all of which swim in immense 
schools, and several, such as the sea-herring, the shad, and the 
various species of the river alewives, are of great economical 
importance. 

In abundance and value these are all surpassed by the men- 
haden, Brevoortia tyranmis (Latrobe Goode), a fish whose habits 
are in many respects anomalous, and concerning which very little 
has been known or written. 

The menhaden has at least thirty distinct popular names, most 
of them limited in their use within narrow geographical bounda- 
aries. To this circumstance may be attributed the prevailing 
ignorance regarding its habits and migrations among our fisher- 
men, which has perhaps prevented the more extensive utilization 
of this fish, particularly in the South. 

North of Cape Cod the name " pogy " is almost universally 
in use, while in Southern New England the fish is known only as 
the "menhaden." These two names are derived from two Indian 
words of the same meaning; the first being the Abnaki name 
"pookagan," or " poghaden," which means "fertilizer," while the 
latter is the modification of a word which in the Narragansett 



4 BIOGRAPHY OP 

dialect meant "that which enriches the earth." About Cape 
Ann, "pogy" is partially replaced by "hard-head," or "hard- 
head shad," and in Eastern Connecticut by "bony fish." In 
Western Connecticut the species is' usually known as the "white 
fish," while in New York the usage of two centuries is in favor of 
"mossbunker." This name is a relic of the Dutch colony of 
New Amsterdam, having evidently been transferred from the 
"scad," or "horse mackerel," Trachiinis lacerta, a fish which 
visits the shores of Northern Europe in immense schools, 
swimming at the surface in much the same manner as our 
menhaden, and known to the Hollanders as the " marshbanker." 
New Jersey uses the New York names with its local variations, 
such as "bunker" and "marshbanker." In Delaware Bay, the 
Potomac and the Chesapeake, we meet with the "alewife," "bay 
wife," "pilcher" (pilchard) and "green-tail." 

Virginia gives us "bug-fish," "bug-head," and "bug-shad," 
referring to the parasitic crustacean found in the mouths of all 
Southern menhaden. In North Carolina occurs the name "fat- 
back," which prevails as far South as Florida, and refers to the 
oiliness of the flesh. In this vicinity, too, the names "yellow- 
tail " and " yellow-tailed shad " are occasionally heard, while in 
Southern Florida the fish is called "shiner" and "herring." In 
South America among the Portuguese the name " savega " is in 
use. On the St. John's river, and wherever Northern fishermen 
are found, " menhaden " is preferred, and it is to be hoped that 
this name will in time be generally adopted. A number of trade 
names are employed by the manufacturers in New Jersey, who 
can this fish for food ; these are " American sardine," " American 
club-fish," "shadine" and " ocean trout." 

In 1815 the species was described by Mitchell, of New York, 
under the name Chipea 7nefihade7i, vth'ich has since been commonly 
accepted. A prior description by Latrobe, in 1802, long lost 
sight of, renders it necessary, as I have elsewhere demonstrated, 
to adopt the specific name tyrannus. The genus Brevoortia, of 
which this species is the type, was established by Gill in 1861. 

The geographical range of Brevoortia tyrannus varies from year 
to year. For 1877 it was, as far as it is possible to define it in 
words, as follows : The wanderings of the species are bounded 
by the parallels of north latitude 25° and 45° ; on the continen i 



THE MENHADEN. 

side by the line of brackish water ; on the east by the inner 
boundary of the gulf stream. In the summer it occurs in the 
coastal waters of all the Atlantic States from Maine to Florida ; in 
winter only south of Cape Hatteras. The limits of its winter 
migration oceanwards cannot be defined, though it is demon- 
strated that the species does not occur about the Bermudas or 
Cuba, nor presumably in the Caribbean Sea. In Brazilian waters 
occurs a geographical race of the same species, Brevoortia 
tyrannuSy sub-species aiirea (the Clupanodon aureus of Agassiz 
and Spix) ; on the coast of Paraguay and Patagonia by Brevoortia 
pectinata ; in the Gulf of Mexico by Brevoortia patronus. 

With the advance of spring the schools of menhaden appear 
near our coasts in company with, and usually slightly in advance 
of, the other non-resident species, such as the shad, alewives, 
blue-fish and squeteague. The following general conclusions 
regarding their movements are deduced from the statements of 
about two hundred observers at different points on the coasts 
from Florida to Nova Scotia : 

At the approach of settled warm weather they make their 
appearance in the inshore waters. It is manifestly impracticable 
to indicate the periods of their movements except in an approxi- 
mate way. The comparison of two localities distant apart one 
or two hundred miles will indicate very little. When wider 
ranges are compared there becomes perceptible a certain pro- 
portion in the relations of the general averages. There is always 
a balance in favor of earlier arrivals in the more southern 
localities. Thus it becomes apparent that the first schools 
appear in Chesapeake Bay in March and April ; on the coast of 
New Jersey in April and early May ; on the south coast of New 
England in late April and May ; off Cape Ann about the middle 
of May, and in the Gulf of Maine in the latter part of May and the 
first of June. Returning, they leave Maine in late September 
and October ; Massachusetts in October, November and Decem- 
ber, the latest departures being those of fish which have been 
detained in the land-locked bays and creeks ; Long Island Sound 
and vicinity in November and December; Chesapeake Bay in 
December, and Cape Hatteras in January. Farther to the south 
they appear to remain more or less constantly throughout the 
year. 



6 BIOGRAPHY OP 

A strange fact is that their Northern range has become con- 
siderably restricted within the past twenty-five years. Perley, 
writing in 1852, stated that they were sometimes caught in 
considerable numbers about St. John's, N. B., and there is 
abundance of other testimony to the fact that they formerly 
frequented the Bay of Fundy in its lower parts. At present the 
eastward wanderings of the schools do not extend beyond Isle 
Au Haut and Great Duck Island, about forty miles west of the 
boundaries of Maine and New Brunswick. They have not been 
known to pass these limits for ten or fifteen years. They have 
this year hardly passed north of Cape Cod, and forty or more 
steamers, which have usually reaped an extensive harvest on the 
coast of Maine, have been obliged to return to the fishing-grounds 
of Southern New England, where menhaden are found as abund- 
antly as ever. 

I have elsewhere shown the arrival of the menhaden schools to 
be closely synchronous with the period at which the weekly 
average of the surface temperatures of the harbors rises to 51° F. 
That they do not enter waters in which, as about Eastport, Me., 
the midsummer surface temperatures, as indicated by monthly 
averages, fall below 51° F., and that their departure in the 
autumn is closely connected with the fall of the thermometer to 
51° and below. In 1877 a cold summer seemed to threaten the 
success of the Maine menhaden fisheries. In September and 
October, however, the temperatures were higher than the cor- 
responding months of the previous year, and the scarcity of the 
early part of the season was amply amended for. 

The season of 1878 in Maine was fairly successful, the three 
summer months being warmer than in 1877, but cooler than in 
1876. The absence of the menhaden schools north of Cape Cod 
in 1879 is also easily explained by the study of temperatures, the 
water of the Gulf of Maine, as indicated by the observations 
made in Portland harbor. The averages for the three summer 
months are as follows, the numerator of the fraction being the 
average surface temperature, the denominator that of the bottom : 
1876, 62.5°-57.9°; 1877, 58.5°-56.7° ; 1878, 6i.5°-58.i ; 1879, 
56.i°-54.6°. 

The average for the three summer months of 1879 is less than 
that of June, 1876. 



THE MENHADEN. 7 

This may perhaps be explained by a study of ocean tempera- 
tures. In August, 1878, there was a very rapid fall in the 
temperature of the surface in the Gulf of Maine, so that the 
average temperature of that month was less than that of July, 
instead of being higher, as is usual. This may have had the 
effect of driving the fish into the warmer water of the bays and 
estuaries. The monthly averages for 1876, 1877, 1878 and 1879 
are as follows : 

1876— June, 56.9°-54°; July, 66.7°-s9.4° ; August, 63.9°-6o.4°. 

1877— June, 54.9°-S3.3° ; July, 58.i°-s6.3° ; August, 62.4°-6o.6°. 

1878— June, 56.8°-55.2° ; July, 66.9°-59.3° ; August, 6o.7°-5g.9°. 

1879— June, 52.9°-5i.7°: July, 55.9°-S4.i° ; August, 59.6°-58. 

The arrival of the menhaden is announced by their appearance 
at the top of the water. They swim in immense schools, their 
heads close to the surface, packed side by side, and often tier 
above tier, almost as closely as sardines in a box. A gentle 
ripple indicates their position, and this may be seen at a distance 
of nearly a mile by the lookout at the mast-head of a fishing 
vessel, and is of great assistance to the seiners in setting their 
nets. At the slightest alarm the school sinks toward the bottom, 
often escaping its pursuers. Sailing over a body of menhaden 
swimming at a short distance below the surface, one may see 
their glittering backs beneath, and the boat seems to be gliding 
over a floor inlaid with blocks of silver. At night they are 
phosphorescent. Their motions seem capricious and without a 
definite purpose ; at times they swim around and around in 
circles ; at other times they sink and rise. While they remain 
thus at the surface after the appearance of a vanguard they 
rapidly increase in abundance until the sea appears to be alive 
with them. They delight to play in inlets and bays, such as the 
Chesapeake, Peconic and Narragansett Bays, and the narrow 
fiords of Maine. They seem particularly fond of shallow waters 
protected from the wind, in which, if not molested, they will 
remain throughout the season, drifting in and out with the tide. 
Brackish water attracts them, and they abound at the mouths of 
streams, especially on the Southern coast. They ascend the St. 
John's River more than thirty miles; the St. Mary's, the Neuse, 
the York, the Rappahannock, the Potomac, nearly to Washington, 
and the Pawtuxent to Marlboro. They come in with or before 



8 BIOGRAPHY OP 

the shad, and are very troublesome to the fishermen by clogging 
their nets. I am not aware that this difficulty occurs in Northern 
rivers, though they are found in the summer in the Hudson and 
its tributaries, the Housatonic, Mystic, Thames and Providence 
Rivers, in the creeks of Cape Cod, and at the mouth of the 
Merrimac. A curious instance of capriciousness in their move- 
ments occurred on the coast of Maine, where much alarm was 
felt, because their habits were thought to have been changed 
through the influence of seining. The shore fishermen could 
obtain none for bait, and vessels followed them far out to sea, 
capturing them in immense quantities forty miles from land. 
The fisheries had produced no such effect south of Cape Cod, 
and it was quite inexplicable that their habits should have been 
so modified in the North. In 1878, however, after ten years or 
more, they resumed their former habits of hugging the shores, 
and the menhaden fishery of Maine was carried on, for the most 
part, in the rivers. 

Why the schools swim at the surface so conspicuous a prey to 
men, birds and other fishes is not known. It does not appear to 
be for the purpose of feeding ; perhaps the fisherman is right 
when he declares that they are playing. 

An old mackerel fisherman thus describes the difference in the 
habits of the mackerel and menhaden : " Pogies school differ- 
ently from mackerel ; the pogy slaps with his tail, and in moderate 
weather you can hear the sound of a school of them, as first one 
and then another strikes the water. The mackerel go along 
'gilling,' — that is, putting the sides of their heads out of the 
water as they swim. The pogies make a flapping sound ; the 
mackerel a rushing sound. Sometimes in calm and foggy 
weather you can hear a school of mackerel miles away." They 
do not attract small birds as do the schools of predaceous fish. 
The fish-hawk often hovers above them, and some of the larger 
gulls occasionally follow them in quest of a meal. About Cape 
Cod one of the gulls, perhaps Lariis argentatus, is called "pogy 
gull." 

On warm, still, sunny days, the fish may always be seen at the 
surface, bnt cold or rainy weather and prevailing northerly or 
easterly winds quickly cause them to disappear. When it is 
rough they are not so often seen, though schools of them 



THE MENHADEN. i1 

frequently appear when the sea is too high for fishermen to set 
their nets. The best days for menhaden fishing are when the 
wind is northwesterly in the morning, dying out in the middle of 
the day, and springing up again in the afternoon from the south'- 
west, with a clear sky. At the change of the wind on such a day 
they come to the surface in large numbers. 

A comparison of the weather upon the menhaden and the 
herring yields some curious results. The latter is a cold water 
species. With the advance of summer it seeks the North, 
returning to our waters with the approach of cold. The men- 
haden prefers the temperature of 60° or more ; the herring 55° 
and less. When the menhaden desert the Gulf of Maine they 
are replaced by the herring. Cold weather drives the former to 
the warmer strata, while it brings the latter to the surface. The 
conditions most favorable on our coast for the appearance of 
herring on the surface, and which correspond precisely with 
those which have been made out for the coast of Europe, are 
least so for the menhaden. 

Their winter habitat, like that of the other cold water absen- 
tees, has never been determined. The most plausible hypothesis 
supposes that instead of migrating toward the tropics or hiber- 
nating near the shore, as has been claimed by many, they swim 
out to sea until they find a stratum of water corresponding to 
that frequented by them during their summer sojourn on the 
coast. 

This is rendered probable by the following considerations : i. 
That the number of menhaden in Southern waters is neither less 
in the season of their abundance nor greater in that of their 
absence from the North coast. 2. That there are local varieties 
of the species, distinguished by physical characters almost of 
specific value, by differences in habits, and in the case of the 
Southern schools by the universal presence in the mouth of a 
crustacean parasite, which is never found with those north of 
Cape May. 3. That the same schools usually reappear in the 
same waters in successive years. 4. That their very prompt 
arrival in the spring suggests their presence in waters near at 
hand. 5. That their leanness when they first appear renders it 
evident that they have had no food since leaving the coast in 
autumn. The latter consideration, since they are bottom feeders, 



BIOGRAPHY Oi^ 

lis the strongest confirmation of the beh'ef that their winter home 
IS in the mid-oceanic sub-strata. 

As is indicated by the testimony of a large number of observers, 

lose statements are elsewhere reviewed at length, the menhaden 
isH)y far the most abundant species of fish on the Eastern coast 
of the United States. Several hundred thousands are frequently 
taken in a single draft of a purse-seine. A firm in Milford, Con- 
necticut, captured in 1870, 8,800,000; in 1871, 8,000,000; in 
1872, 10,000,000; in 1873, 12,000,000; in 1877, three sloops 
from New London seined 13,000,000. In 1877, an unprofitable 
year, the Pemaquid Oil Company took 20,000,000, and the town 
of Boothbay alone 50,000,000. There is no evidence whatever 
of any decrease in their numbers, though there can be in the 
nature of the case absolutely no data for comparison of their 
abundance in successive years. Since spawning menhaden are 
never taken in the nets, no one can reasonably predict a decrease 
in the future. 

The nature of the food of the menhaden has been closely 
investigated ; hundreds of specimens have been dissected, and 
every stomach examined by me has been found full of dark, 
greenish or brownish mud or silt, such as occurs near the mouths 
of rivers and on the bottoms of still bays and estuaries. When 
this mud is allowed to stand for a time in clear water, this 
becomes slightly tinged with green, indicating the presence of 
chlorophyl, perhaps derived from the algae, so common on muddy 
bottoms. In addition to particles of fine mud, the microscope 
reveals a few common forms of diatoms. 

There are no teeth in the mouth of the menhaden, their place 
being supplied by about 1,500 thread-like bristles, from one-third 
to three-quarters of an inch long, which are attached to the gill 
arches, and may be so adjusted as to form a very effective 
strainer; the stomach is globular, pear-shaped, with thick mus- 
cular walls, resembling the gizzard of a fowl, while the length of 
the coiled intestine is five or six times that of the body of the 
fish. The plain inference from these facts, taken in connection 
with what is known of the habits of the menhaden, seems to be 
that their food consists in large part of the sediment, containing 
much organic matter, which gathers upon the bottoms of still, 
protected bays, and also of the vegetation that grows in such 



THE MENHADEN. 11 

localities. Perhaps, too, when swimming at the surface with 
expanded jaws, they are able to gather nutritious food which 
floats on the water. 

The rapid increase in size and fatness, which commences as 
soon as they approach our shores, indicates that they find an 
abundant supply of some kind of food. The oil manufacturers 
report that in the spring a barrel 'of fish often yields less than 
three quarts of oil, while late in the fall it is not uncommon to 
obtain five or six gallons. 

There is still some mystery about their breeding habits ; 
thousands of specimens have been dissected since 1871 without 
the discovery of mature ova. In early summer the genitalia are 
quite undeveloped, but as the season advances they slowly increase 
in size and vasculerity. Among the October fish a few ovaries 
were noticed in which the eggs could be seen with the naked eye. 
A school of large fish driven ashore in November in Delaware 
Bay by the blue-fish contained spawn nearly ripe, and others 
taken at Christmas-time in Provincetown harbor, evidently strag- 
glers accidently delayed, contained eggs quite mature. Young 
menhaden from one to three inches in length and upward are 
common in summer south of New York, and those of five to eight 
inches in late summer and autumn in the southern part of New 
England. These are in schools and make their appearance 
suddenly from the open ocean like the adult fish. Menhaden 
have never been observed spawning on the Southern coast, and 
the egg-bearing individuals when observed are always heading 
out to sea. These considerations appear to warrant the theory 
that their breeding-grounds are on the offshore shoals which skirt 
the coast from Georges Banks to the Florida Keys. 

The fecundity of the menhaden is very great, much surpassing 
that of the shad and herring. The ovaries of a fish taken in 
Narragansett Bay, November i, 1879, contained at least 150,000 
eggs. 

Among the enemies of the menhaden may be counted every 
predaceous animal which swims in the same waters. Whales and 
dolphins follow the schools and consume them by the hogshead ; 
sharks of all kinds prey upon them largely ; one hundred have 
been taken from the stomach of one shark ; all the large carnivo- 
rous fishes feed upon them. The tunny is the most destructive. 



12 BIOGRAPHY OP 

" I have often," writes a gentleman in Maine, " watched their 
antics from the mast-head of my vessel ; rushing and thrashing 
like demons among a school offish; darting with almost lightning 
swiftness, scattering them in every direction, and throwing hun- 
dreds of them in the air with their tails." The pollock, the 
whiting, the striped bass, the cod, the squeteague and the gar-fish 
are savage foes. The sword-fish and the bayonet-fish destroy 
many, rushing through the schools and striking right and left 
with their powerful swords. The blue-fish and bonito are, how- 
ever, the most destructive enemies, not even excepting man. 
These corsairs of the sea, not content with what they eat, which 
is of itself an enormous quantity, rush ravenously through the 
closely crowded schools, cutting and tearing the living fish as 
they go, and leaving in their wake the mangled fragments. 
Traces of their carnage remain for weeks in the great "slicks" 
of oil so commonly seen on smooth water in summer. Professor 
Baird, in his well-known and often quoted estimates of food 
annually consumed by the blue-fish, states that probably ten 
thousand millions of fish or twenty-five millions of pounds daily, 
or twelve hundred million millions of fish and three hundred 
thousands of millions of pounds, are much below the real figures. 
This estimate is for the period of four months in the middle of 
the summer and fall, and for the coast of New England only. 

Such estimates are professedly only approximations, but are 
legitimate in their way, since they enable us to appreciate more 
clearly the luxuriance of marine life. Applying similar methods 
of calculation to the menhaden I estimate the total number 
destroyed annually on our coast by predaceous animals at a 
million million of millions, in comparison with which the quanti- 
ties destroyed by man yearly sink into insignificance. 

It is not hard to surmise the menhaden's place in nature ; 
swarming our waters in countless myriads, swimming in closely 
packed, unwieldy masses, helpless as flocks of sheep, near to the 
surface and at the mercy of every enemy, destitute of means of 
defence and offence, their mission is unmistakably to be eaten. 

In the economy of nature certain orders of terrestial animals, 
feeding entirely upon vegetable substances, seem intended for one 
purpose, — to elaborate simple materials into the nitrogenous 
tissues necessary for the food of other animals, which are wholly 



THE MENHADEN. 13 

or in part carnivorous in their diet ; so the menhaden, feeding 
upon otherwise unutilized organic matter, is pre-eminently a 
meat-producing agent. Man takes from the water every year 
eight or nine hundred millions of these fish, weighing from two 
hundred to three hundred thousand tons, but his indebtedness 
does not end here. When he brings upon his table blue-fish, 
bonitoes, weak-fish, sword-fish, or bass, he has before him usually 
menhaden flesh in another form. 

The commercial importance of the menhaden has but lately 
come into appreciation. Twenty-five years ago, and before, it was 
thought to be of very small value. A few millions were taken 
every year in Massachusetts Bay, Long Island Sound and the 
inlets of New Jersey. A small portion of these were used for 
bait ; a few barrels occasionally salted in Massachusetts to be 
exported into the West Indies. Large quantities were ploughed 
into the soil of the farms along the shores, stimulating the crops 
for a time, but in the end filling the soil with oil, parching it and 
making it unfit for tillage.* Since that time manifold uses have 
been found. As a bait-fish this excels all others ; for many years 
much the greater share of our mackerel was caught by its aid, 



* Professor Trumbull tells us that the Indian names of Brevoortia, " menhaden " and 
" poghaden " (pogy), mean "fertilizer," that which manures, and that the Indians were 
accustomed to employ this species, with others of the herring tribe {aumsuog and munna- 
inhateany), mostly the alewife (Pomolobtis sp.), in enriching their corn-fields. Thomas Morton 
wrote in lb3'2 of Virginia : " There is a fish (by some called shadds, by some allizes) that at the 
Spring of the yeare piisse up the rivers to spawn in the ponds,, & are taken in such multitudes in 
every river that hath a pond at the end that the inhabitants doung their grounds with them. 
You may see in one township a hundred acres together, set with these fiali, every acre taking 
1,000 of them, & an acre thus dressed will produce and 3'eald as much corne as three acres with- 
out fish ; <fe (least any Virginea man would inferre hereupon that the ground of New England 
is barren, because they use no fish in setting their corne, I desire them to be remembered, the 
cause is plaine in Virginea) they have it not to sett. But this practice is onely for the Indian 
maize which must be set by hands), not for English grain : and this is, therefore, a commodity 
there." 

This passage is very interesting, showing the use of fish fertilizers in Virginia two hundred 
and fifty years ago or more, and, from what is known of the habits of the herring family in 
Virginia rivers and the persistency of local names, there can be little doubt that many men- 
haden were used among the fertilizing fish, though " shadds and allizes " doubtless includes the 
shad (Alosa sapidissima), the mattowo:ca (Pomolobns mediocHs), the alewife (Poniolohus i^ernalis and 
P. seslivalis), and the thread-herring (Dorosoma cepedianum), all of which are common in spring 
in the Potomac and other rivers which empty into Chesapeake Bay. 

In Governor Bradford's " History of Plimoth Plantation " an account is given of the early 
agricultural experiences of the Plymouth colonists. In April, 1621, at the close of the first long 
dreary winter, "tliey (as many as were able; began to plant their corne, in which service 
Squanto (an Indian) stood them in great stead, showing them both ye manner how to set it and 
after how to dress and tend it. Also he tould them, axcepte they got fish & set with it (in these 



14 BIOGRAPHY OF 

while the cod and haUbut fleet use it rather than any other fish 
when it can be procured. The total consumption of menhaden 
for bait, 1877, did not fall below 80,000 barrels, or 26,000,000 of 
fish, valued at ^500,000. Ten years before, when the entire 
mackerel fleet was fishing with hooks, the consumption was 
much greater. The Dominion mackerel fleet buy menhaden bait 
in quantity, and its value has been thought an important element 



old grounds) it would come to nothing; and he showed them jt in ye middle of April they 
should have store enough come up ye brooke by which they begane to build and taught them 
how to take it." 

An allusion to the practice of the Indians in this respect may be found in George Mourt's 
" Relation or jovirnal of the beginning and proceedings of the English plantation settled at 
Plimoth, in New England, by certain Englisli adventurers both merchants and others." * * * 
" London, 1622: " " We set the Itist Spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some 
six acres of barley and peas, and, accoi'ding to the manner of Indians, we manured our ground 
with herrings, or rather shads, which we have in great abundance and take with great ease at 
our doors. Our corn did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, 
and our barley indifferent good." * * * a: 

Again, in Edward Johnson's " Wonder-working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New 
England, Being a Relation of the firste planting in New England in the yeere 1628, London, 
1654," written In 16.52, the author says: " But the Lord is pleased to provide for them [the 
colonists] great store of flsh in the Spring time, especially alewives, about the bignesse of a 
herring. Many thousands of these they used to put under tlieir Indian corn, which they plant 
in hills five foot assunder ; and assuredly when the Lord created this corne, hee had a special 
eye to supply these his people's wants with it, for ordinarily five or six grains doth produce six 
hundred." 

Menhaden do not appear to have been much used by agriculturists of Cape Cod in the 
beginning of this century, though the old record shows that the horse-shoe crab and sea-weed 
were extensively applied. 

In 1792, the Hon. Ezra L. Hommedieu, of New York, published a paper in the New York 
Agricultural Transactions, which gives somewhat more accurate data and directions concerning 
the use of flsh as a fertilizer. He says: " Experiments made by using the fish called menhaden 
or mossbankers as a manure have succeeded beyond all expectation. * * * In dunging corn 
in the holes, put two in a liill, on any kind of soil where corn will grow, and you will have a 
good crop." He recommends them as a top-dressing for grass. "Put them on a piece of poor 
loamy land, at the distance of fifteen inches from each other. * * * And by their putre- 
faction they so enrich the land that you may mow about two tons per acre." But he adds very 
wisely : " How long this manure will last has not been determined." He gives in his quaintly 
interesting way an account of " an experiment made the last Summer by one of my near 
neighbors, Mr. Tuthill, in raising vegetables with this fish manure," which is worth citing as 
an illustration of the curious combinations of truth and error which, in their lack of definite 
knowledge of the laws of plant growth and the action of manures, the theorizers of that time 
invented. 

The following order from the records of the town of Ipswich, Mass., Jlay 11, 1644, illus- 
trates, in a comical way, the customs of using fish for manure in these early days : 

" It is ordered that all doggs, for the space of three weeks after the publishing hereof, shall 
have one legg tyed up, and if such a dogg shall break loose and be found doing any harm, the 
owner of the dogg shall pay damage. If a man ref\ise to tye up his dogg's legg, and hee bee 
found scrapeing up fish in a cornfield, the owner thereof shall pay twelve pence damage beside 
whatever damage the dogg doth. But if any fish their house lotts and receive damage by doggs, 
the owners of those house lotts shall bear the damage themselves." 



THE MENHADEN. 15 

in framing treaties between our government and that of Great 
Britain. 

As a food resource it is found to have great possibilities. Many 
hundreds of barrels are sold in the West Indies, while thousands 
of barrels are salted down for domestic use by families living 
near the shore. In many sections they are sold fresh in the 
market. Within six years there has sprung up an important 
industry, which consists in packing these fish in oil, after the 
manner of sardines, for home and foreign consumption. In 1874 
the production of canned fish did not fall below 500,000 boxes. 

The discovery made by Mr. S. L. Goodale, that from these fish 
may be extracted, for the cost of carefully boiling them, a sub- 
stance possessing all the properties of Liebig's '' Extract of Beef," 
opens up a vast field for future development. As a food for the 
domestic animals in the form of " fish meal," there seems also to 
be £f' broad opening. As a source of oil, the menhaden is of 
more importance than any other marine animal. Its annual yield 
usually exceeds that of the whale (from the American fisheries) by 
about 200,000 gallons, and in 1874 did not fall far short of the 
aggregate of all the whale, seal and cod oil made in America. In 
1878 the menhaden oil and guano industry employed capital to 
the amount of $2,350,000, 3,337 men, 64 steamers, 279 sailing 
vessels, and consumed 777,000,000 of fish; there were 56 
factories, which produced 1,392,644 gallons of oil, valued at 
$450,000, and 55,154 tons of crude guano, valued at $600,000; 
this was a poor year. In 1874 the number of gallons produced 
was 3,373,000 ; in 1875, 2,681,000; in 1876, 2,992,000; in 1877, 
2,427,000. In 1878 the total value of manufactured products 
was $1,050,000; in 1874 this was $1,809,000; in 1875, $1,582,000 ; 
in 1876, $1,671,000 ; in 1877, $1,608,000. It should be stated 
that in these reports only four-fifths of the whole number of 
factories are included. The refuse of the oil factories supplies a 
material of much value for manures. As a base for nitrogen it 
enters largely into the composition of most of the manufactured 
fertilizers. The amount of nitrogen derived from this source in 
1875 was estimated to be equivalent to that contained in 
60,000,000 pounds of Peruvian guano, the gold value of which 
would not have been far from $1,920,000. The yield of the men- 
haden fishery in pounds is probably triple that of any other 



16 THE MENHADEN. 

carried on by the fishermen of the United States. In the value 
of its products it is surpassed only by three; the cod fishery, 
which in 1876 was estimated to be worth $4,826,000; the whale 
fishery, $2,850,000, and the mackerel fishery, $2,275,000, — the 
value of the menhaden fishery for this year being $1,658,000. 

In estimating the importance of the menhaden to the United 
States, it should be borne in mind that its absence from our 
waters would probably reduce all our other sea fisheries to at 
least one-fourth their present extent. 




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